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Stellaris Dev Diary #95: Humanoids Species Pack

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. As said last week, today's dev diary is not about the Cherryh update at all, but rather something much more imminent: The Humanoids Species Pack
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Humanoids Species Pack
Over the last year or so, and especially in the last few months, there has been a lot of clamoring for more portraits and another ship-set like the one we added in Plantoids. Because of the amount of coder and content designer time we're putting into the major overhauls in the Cherryh update, we ended up with a lot of extra art time, and so we decided to oblige. Back in the Heinlein update, we added a bunch of free humanoid portraits that proved to be immensely popular - close to half of games started is with some variant of humanoid. Combine with there seeming to be a demand for a more 'classic western sci-fi' ship-set with sleeker lines and curves than the Mammalian one, and the design for the Humanoid Species Pack was born. Our artists have been quietly working away at it behind the scenes, and now it's almost ready.

So what's in the Humanoid Species Pack? Here is the feature list:
- 10 new Humanoid portraits
- A completely new ship set inspired by classic western sci-fi
- A new city set for Humanoids
- A new pre-scripted empire, the Fanatic Authoritarian/Materialist Voor Technocracy, with a portrait inspired by the 'loading screen aliens' from our own official art
- 3 new advisor voices offering alternative takes on existing ethics, based on the United Nations of Earth ('Dignified Xenophile'), Commonwealth of Man ('Disciplined Militarist') and Voor Technocracy ('Ruthless Materialist'). Samples from each of the new voices has been attached to the bottom of this post.
- 3 new music tracks that are remixes of classic Stellaris songs

Of course, the 5 Humanoid portraits that are already in the base game will remain free and available to everyone.

The Humanoids Species Pack will come out on December 7th, 2017 and will cost $7.99 US dollars or your regional equivalent. For those who want to buy it right now, pre-orders are available through the Paradox Shop. To pre-order, follow this link.

Next week we'll get back to talking about the Cherryh update on the topic of doomstacks (for real this time). Until then, I leave you with these awesome screenshots:
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Attachments

  • Commonwealth_VIR.wav
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  • UNE_Vir.wav
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  • Voor_VIR.wav
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bitmapmedivh said:
I can get behind a portrait enabler. It wouldn't really be that different from the spawn options for custom empires.
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I would also like to see spawn options for the prescripted empires.
 
jazzglands said:
I stopped caring about realism right around Leviathans. Orks and Squats are a little silly, but so are fox people. It's not that much of a tone-change. I'm just gonna lean into it I like the ship sets, I'll roll with the dwarves, and I think the orc guys actually look pretty cool.
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It's not about realism. Would you want to see orcs, elves and halflings in Star Wars? I think not. It's about the internal consistency of a fictional universe, not so much about realism. Yes, the setting of Stellaris is all over the place and intentionally so. But the idea of different races followed a consistent logic: Different species we know developing into conscious beings on other planets. I never had a huge problem with that. I wouldn't mind the introduction of other, strange forms of conscious life into the game. But to simply go into the fantasy direction simply feels wrong und a bit lazy too. I also don't mind the other humanoid portraits which were shown. I only wanted to voice my opinion about one little step in a direction i find wrong.
 
bloodyglasspuppet said:
Would you want to see orcs, elves and halflings in Star Wars? I think not.
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http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fay
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gamorrean

Honestly, Star Wars is as fantasy as it gets (you might argue whether it's sci-fi or not, but it's definitely within the realm of high fantasy), so it might not be the best example for this. Also, Star Trek, which is definitely sci-fi and arguably the biggest inspiration for Stellaris, has their own "space elves" so I don't really see the point.

It's just a matter of what you personally find immersion-breaking. I, for one, look forward to playing a sci-fi version of Lord of the Rings.
 
I really love the portraits, but i think you could add some settings allowing (or not) some portrait groups (like Humanoids or Cute ones) to appear in the game. I'm ok with having as much variety as possible, but sometimes i would like to play in a galaxy without Humanoid or Cute races, only weird space aliens.
 
Hatsune Miku said:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fay
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Gamorrean

Honestly, Star Wars is as fantasy as it gets (you might argue whether it's sci-fi or not, but it's definitely within the realm of high fantasy), so it might not be the best example for this. Also, Star Trek, which is definitely sci-fi and arguably the biggest inspiration for Stellaris, has their own "space elves" so I don't really see the point.

It's just a matter of what you personally find immersion-breaking. I, for one, look forward to playing a sci-fi version of Lord of the Rings.
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I don't care for extended universe stuff (and don't know about it) and the Gamorrean would fit into Stellaris quite well actually: Pigs that developed into conscious beings.
But it's really not about the details, it's more about the general feeling of a setting which is deeply connected with the art design. With your last sentence you answered the question i was asking earlier quite well. It seems you represent a part of the community which could lead the game into a wrong direction from my point of view. This is not meant to be an insult, you have the right to an opinion of course.
Now i think i will end the conversation. I think my posts gave away the wrong impression that i make a big deal about what is in fact a minor quibble at this point for me... We will see how it goes in the future.
 
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I will admit that it feels a bit lazy to go for Orcs, Devils, Dwarves and Halflings in a humanoid pack when both Star Wars and Star Trek contains dozens upon dozens of examples of humanoid aliens without tapping into fantasy race stereotypes (Vulcans excepted). Those two franchises have examples of fantastically lazy design choices, true. But none of them had an explicit Bilbo Baggins-copy walking around on a starship. I mean, even Pillars of Eternity managed to do something new with their totally-not-Halflings race.

The inclusion of Halflings and Dwarves in this pack kind of soured me on it, I have to admit.
 
Looks to me as if the art department have taken inspiration from the Imperial fleet; those Corvettes look a little inspired by Imperial Star Destroyers. Loving the look!
 
bitmapmedivh said:
I can get behind a portrait enabler. It wouldn't really be that different from the spawn options for custom empires.

I hate Halflings with the burning passion of a thousand exploding stars. Worst fantasy race ever made.
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To each their own, but I will buy this pack just for space halflings, Agrarian Idyll, inward perfection. One can always just remove their portrait from files if it really bugs someone. I'm sure that someone will mod out the more "fantasy" portraits first thing when DLC comes out.
 
@bloodyglasspuppet, @Hatsune Miku

You two do not have to worry, because you are actually of the same opinion! Such things must be seen by the developer or he is in the way of himself (and I am in good hope.) It's essential that 1.9 offers the opportunity to exclude species.

It makes no sense to allow the player a lot of choices and then frustrate him with exactly this!

Players must be allowed to enjoy a startrek-feeling while others chase orks with space dwarves. We must remember that we all love the same game, that should connect us. The rest we can ask from the developers.
 
ImpalerWrG said:
I still refuse to buy DLC for a game that has not even reached a point worthy of being called a Beta.
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You must have played some pretty ridiculous Beta's if you think they have more content than Stellaris. And by betas I don't mean the kind EA throws out that are more early demo than beta.

Edit: An alpha is a game with a few core features needing testing and little else. A beta is a game with most base game core features available but needing intensive testing.

A game by a big company that runs a beta is just running a restricted early access demo with feigned exclusivity.

Stellaris is well past any of those stages. It's in the DLC adds extra content stage which most companies do minimal amounts of before abandoning the game for other enterprises that make more money.
 
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basserg said:
To each their own, but I will buy this pack just for space halflings, Agrarian Idyll, inward perfection. One can always just remove their portrait from files if it really bugs someone. I'm sure that someone will mod out the more "fantasy" portraits first thing when DLC comes out.
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I'll probably even do it myself. I think I'll ultimately get the pack, since the rest seems too good an addition to miss out on. But to me it seems like the wrong creative decision to make the Humanoid Pack include 3-4 obvious fantasy races.
 
Can we see something similar to Gurren Laggan´s ship types?

To be honest having a crisis similar to the one in the series would be awesome :D
 
Xoatl said:
Don't play much Stellaris anymore as I await it to be fleshed out some more. But the space orcs look really tempting. (Hmmm, Maybe as a slave species to the space elves, so many possibilities for roleplay).
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I use the dragon species for this.
 
I approve of the dwarves and orcs because i like LoTR and Warhammer so much, also dwarves/elves are always my favorite in any genre
 
Nurizeko said:
Shame I won't be purchasing this due to the Cherryh update. Even if it comes out before, that's not the kind of conduct I want to condone.

Looks nice though. :I

Edit: Unless you plan on forcing me at gun-point to buy this, your disagreement is meaningless, so save the click.
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Unless you plan on forcing all of us at gunpoint to avoid and not enjoy the update, your comment is meaningless, so save everyone the time.
 
DaStormDragon said:
I approve of the dwarves and orcs because i like LoTR and Warhammer so much, also dwarves/elves are always my favorite in any genre
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Isn´t there already an elvish humanoid species? Just not with a very "elvish" ship type (the mammalian ship set is so ugly, ewww)
 
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